Hope's Peak (Harper and Lane #1)(44)

Lester looks at the old trash cans. The remains will never fit in one as he is. Lester goes into the house, where he keeps the log-splitting axe next to the fridge. He walks toward Mack’s body, swinging the axe back and forth, hefting its weight in his hands. Best to remove Mack’s legs and arms, then cut his torso in two. That way he can stuff him into one of the cans, and keep the fire contained to one cylinder.

“Forry, Mack,” he spits, lifting the axe high. The blade flashes in the fading light, and he brings it down with a heavy chomping sound.

When he’s done, Lester wipes the blood splatter from his mouth and fetches one of the rusted old trash cans. He drags it across the grass, sets it just right, then piles Mack’s body parts inside. His head sits on the top, like a cherry on a cake. A liberal soaking with gasoline, and Lester lights a match, tossing it in and stepping back. The flames roar, consuming Mack’s head, melting it away. It reminds Lester of a hog roast he once watched on TV. The fat popped and hissed as the hog turned on the spit, the same way Mack does now. When all is said and done, and the fire has died away, he will collect the charred bones and teeth and bury them.

The air is filled with cloying smoke and the stink of burnt pork, but Lester watches the fire dance long after the stars have come out. He doesn’t know how he got to be so clever.



Harper lies stretched out on Stu’s bed, one leg over his, listening to his breathing as he sleeps. There’s a thin sheet across them—it’s too hot in his apartment to sleep with anything heavier. The fan turns on the ceiling, chomping at the warm air.

She tries to get a fix on what’s going to happen with her and Stu. Was tonight one last fling? Or was it the beginning of a continuation? Harper closes her eyes, tries to switch off, but she can’t. The last thing she wanted to do was get into another full-on relationship. Leaving San Francisco, she’d been happy to call it a day on men for a while. Let her marriage shrink in the distance before she started looking forward to whatever was next.

But I didn’t count on meeting a guy like Stu.

Deep down he is a good person, a caring individual who’s been through the wringer just as she has. It helps that he’s good-looking, too. In a way, they’d needed each other.

Is that all it is? A relationship born of convenience?

Harper looks at him, at his chest rising and falling, at the shadow of the fan intermittently revealing his face and suspending it in shadow in the space of seconds.

No. This is more. We were meant to get together.

Morelli tasked them with getting their heads right, and she knows that none of this will help. It’ll only make matters more complicated. She’d been determined to cool it off between herself and Stu.

Lasted long, didn’t it?

Harper gets up, careful not to wake him, and hunts for her clothes. The clock says 2:00 a.m. She has to get out of there, get to her own place. Dressing in the dark, she looks at Stu and feels her stomach flutter, not only at the sight of him, but at the prospect of being with him. In that moment, Harper almost stays.

But before she can rethink it, she’s out in the street, unlocking her car.



There was no sleep to be found. Harper stops outside Albie’s apartment complex, and he climbs into the passenger seat.

“Morning.”

It’s already light at six in the morning, and Harper has her shades on. “I guess it is.”

Albie looks behind him. “No Stu?”

“Afraid not,” Harper says, putting the car into gear and starting off. “Stu Raley is otherwise indisposed. We’ll shoot over, just the two of us.”

“Okay. And if the captain asks?” Albie asks her.

“I don’t know.” Harper shrugs. “Tell him to kiss your ass?”

“Thanks. Big help.” Albie runs a hand over his face. “Listen, Harper . . . is this, like, off the record?”

“No, we arranged this yesterday.”

He shifts in his seat. “Yeah, I know that. But that was before the Queen Bitch from Satan’s Armpit came in the station and pulled half your scalp out.”

“Don’t sweat it, Albie.”

“I’m not. I’m not. Believe me. But word is Morelli suspended you,” he says. She can hear the uncertainty, the nervousness in his voice.

Harper glances sidelong at him. “It’s only half true. I’m still on the case. It’s all complicated, Albie. Just trust me. Nothing will fall on you.”

“Okay, if you say so.”

Twenty minutes later, they arrive at the residence of Hugo Escovado. Harper sits with her hands on the steering wheel, regarding the house through the windshield.

Across the road is the patrol car. “Come on, let’s get this done,” she says, climbing out.

She crosses the street, Albie in tow. The two male officers in the black-and-white get out and stretch.

“Ah! If it isn’t Weinberg and Tasker.”

Weinberg tips his hat. “Morning, Detective.”

She looks at his partner, on the other side of the car. “Feeling better now, Tasker?”

“Almost,” he says, embarrassed.

“Where d’you want us?” Weinberg asks her.

Harper thumbs in the direction of the house. “We’re going in there to talk to a suspect. I want you two fine gentlemen to wait at the door. If you hear me shout, one goes in the front door. The other goes round back.”